I Dreamed A Dream - Susan Boyle Version

Susan Boyle Version

The song had a resurgence in popularity in 2009 when Scottish singer Susan Boyle performed it as her audition for the third series of the British reality television programme, Britain's Got Talent. Boyle's performance elicited a unanimous vote for passage into the next round of competition by judges Piers Morgan, Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell, with Morgan giving Boyle "the biggest yes ever given" in his three years of judging the show. Elaine Paige, Boyle's role model, later expressed interest in singing a duet with her. The programme received high ratings and Boyle's performance was quickly added to sites such as YouTube, where millions of people viewed it in the first month alone. Boyle sang the song again during the finals of Britain's Got Talent on 30 May 2009, where she placed second in the competition behind British dance troupe Diversity. Today, it is known as the song that catapulted her to super-stardom, and it helped sales of her album I Dreamed a Dream. Currently, the album has been declared as the fastest selling debut album of all time in the UK, and sold 701,000 copies in its first week in just the US, breaking the record for highest debut ever for a solo female artist.

Shortly after Boyle's audition aired on ITV in April, the Original London Cast Recording of LuPone singing "I Dreamed a Dream" was downloaded to such a degree that the song entered music charts in the U.S. and UK. The U.S. Billboard magazine's Hot Digital Songs and Hot Singles Recurrents charts for the week of 2 May 2009 had LuPone's 1985 recording at #61 and #20, respectively. LuPone's version also reached #45 on the UK Singles Chart on the week of 25 April 2009. Susan Boyle's later 2009 recording rivaled pre-order sales records on Amazon.com in November 2009.